Ohio lags neighbors in tourism marketing

Sunday

Apr 29, 2012 at 12:01 AMApr 29, 2012 at 2:41 PM

The sun setting over a lake. A roaring river. A summer festival. A football Saturday afternoon in Ann Arbor. Throw in a soothing voice-over from actor Tim Allen and you have the Pure Michigan tourism commercial the State Up North has been airing on national TV since 2009.

Joe Vardon, The Columbus Dispatch

The sun setting over a lake. A roaring river. A summer festival. A football Saturday afternoon in Ann Arbor.

Throw in a soothing voice-over from actor Tim Allen and you have the Pure Michigan tourism commercial the State Up North has been airing on national TV since 2009.

That’s what a $27.4 million state tourism budget — the biggest among Midwestern states — will get you.

Even if lawmakers approve Gov. John Kasich’s proposal to radically alter how Ohio pays to market itself as a tourist destination — taking the current $5 million general-revenue fund allocation and doubling it through different means — it still would pale in comparison with the cash Michigan has for its national ad campaign.

But Kasich’s proposal to fund Ohio’s tourism marketing campaigns entirely through sales-tax receipts would make Ohio more competitive regionally. The average tourism budget among Midwestern states — Michigan ($27.4 million), Kentucky ($11.8 million), West Virginia ($7.3 million), Ohio ($5.4 million), Pennsylvania ($5.1?million), and Indiana ($2.7?million) — was about $10?million in fiscal year 2011, according to the U.S. Travel Association.

“We are in a competitive regional market,” said Amir Eylon, Ohio’s tourism director. “The purpose of this (new funding model) would be to make us more competitive. ... Everyone’s working to beef up our investment.”

Kasich’s plan, which is included in House Bill 489 and passed the House last week, is a five-year test program in which the state’s tourism budget would be funded entirely by the growth in sales-tax revenue generated by the industry beginning in fiscal year 2014. The plan caps funding at $10 million and ends the practice of paying for tourism marketing out of the state’s general-revenue fund.

The bill also would rename the state’s tourism department TourismOhio and establish an advisory board made up mostly of people with five years of experience in the attractions, lodging, restaurant, transportation or retail industries.

Michigan’s robust budget has been funded primarily by that state’s tobacco-settlement money since 2009, said George Zimmermann, vice president of Michigan’s tourism bureau. Virtually all of Michigan’s national and regional ad buys are covered by $25 million from the state’s tobacco-settlement fund, while the remaining $2.4?million for administrative costs is appropriated by the General Assembly.

The Allen-voiced commercials will run about 5,000 times nationally on cable TV from March 19 through June for an ad buy of about $12?million. Michigan runs a separate regional marketing campaign that begins in May.

Zimmermann said last year’s ad campaigns brought 3.2 million out-of-state visitors to Michigan who spent $1 billion on Michigan businesses.

“The state got back $5 for every $1 it spent on the campaign,” Zimmermann said. “We knew we had a national-quality product, and we knew we could attract a lot more people if we actually marketed Michigan. In 2009, we had the funding to actually do it.”

Kasich was asked last week if he’s seen or heard an Allen commercial (they also air on the radio), and he said, “No, I really haven’t, so that tells you they’ve probably wasted a lot of money.

“We have a lot of things to promote, there’s ... a lot we can do to talk about the richness of the experience in Ohio, but we’re not going to spend $27 million, I believe. Tim Allen was sort of yesterday’s news, wasn’t he?”

Only eight states budgeted less to spend on tourism marketing this year than Ohio. Eylon said Ohio’s major ad campaign this fall — a regional campaign to run in markets such as Pittsburgh, Detroit, Indianapolis and Louisville — will run from May through June and cost about $1.8 million.

Ohio doesn’t have traditional marketing campaigns for the fall or holiday seasons.

“The regional average is $10 million. We’ll take a look at what we can do at that level, and if it makes sense, continue conversation from there,” Eylon said.

Connecticut boosted its tourism funding from $1.2?million last year to about $15?million this year, as Gov. Dannel Malloy got the legislature to go along with his campaign promise to dramatically reshape the state’s operation.

The Kasich administration is modeling its plan off of the model Missouri adopted in 1994, which provided for potentially millions in additional funding each year based on a percentage growth in sales-tax receipts from the industry.

Missouri’s tourism budget was about $6 million in 1993 and grew to $11.6 million in 1996. But because Missouri’s tourism-funding stream still requires lawmakers’ approval each year, the department’s budget has been stagnant at about $12.4 million, down from nearly $20 million in 2008.

“We haven’t used (the 1994) formula in a number of years. We would be over $30 million if we did,” said Katie Steele Danner, director of the Missouri division of Tourism.

“What Ohio’s doing is better,” Steele Danner said. “The Ohio model has taken some of the challenges of our legislation and set aside (the funding stream) so it can’t be taken away. I think their compromise in doing so is the $10 million cap.”